Watch as babies as young as 16 weeks dance to music in utero

If groove is in the heart, it’s because it all starts in the womb. A new video shows babies as young as 16 weeks appearing to sing and dance to music long before they’re born.

The 3D images show the foetuses moving their mouths and wriggling and turning after tunes are transmitted internally through their mother – and 10 weeks earlier than previously believed.

Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody beats and classic Mozart were the tunes to get the biggest reactions from the babies.

The Australian reports that doctors could see the babies dancing in utero after inserting a special device, according to a study published in the British journal, Ultrasound.

The study found 87 per cent of foetuses moved their mouths or tongues and almost half pull out their tongues as far as they will go when they can hear music. Take a look:

Researchers in Barcelona and Milan said the stimulation helps a baby’s vocal development after birth.

Author of the study, Dr Marisa Lopez-Teijon, the head of assisted reproduction at Institut Marques in Barcelona, says the formula for foetuses to hear like us is to emit music from the mother’s vagina.

“They barely hear the sound that reaches them through their mother’s abdomen because the soft tissues of the abdomen and the inside of the mother’s body absorb the sound waves,” she says.

Foetuses moved their mouths or tongues and half of them reacted with a very noticeable movement, opening their jaws very wide and pulling out their tongues as far as possible, says co-author Dr Alex Garcia-Faura.